Last updated on November 26, 2023
Whenever I would speak to groups, they’d ask if I have a special diet. The answer was always a firm, “No way!”
Gluten free? No thank you. Casein free? Nope. I love baking and eating, especially cookies. Eating cookies requires milk. I love my grains and pastas, too.
Well, so much for my claims I don’t have a special diet.
I was recently diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.
According to WebMD and other sources, blood sugar levels are ideally below 99 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL)
My blood sugar was 187, and that’s not a good thing. The labs suggested high cholesterol, too. It was time to make some changes if I didn’t want to be on medication — or insulin.
There went the sugar, carbohydrates, and everything I love to cook.
Within a few weeks, I managed to drop the blood sugar to 125 with diet alone. Certainly, it was a good thing to address diabetes quickly and without serious intervention.
I have learned that I can use almond flour, sugar substitutes, and other tricks to make cookies, brownies, and cakes. However, those ingredients are also double to quadruple the price of standard baking staples. How much do I love my sweets? Probably enough to spend $7 on flour and $6 on sugar substitutes. Yeah, I’m not giving up cookies. That’s not happening.
So, now I am on a special diet. It isn’t anything autism or ADHD related. It’s simply a matter of keeping myself healthy.
The autistic me is now also the diabetic me.
Getting older and more complicated…